Sly 2 Point 5: Trust Among Thieves
by x.Broken Time.x
Summary: The Cooper Gang takes a short vacation and visits the Aviator's P.R.I.M.E. competition in France. While there, Bentley finds the target of their biggest heist yet and recruits a new member. But she's a hitman hired to kill Sly! But... why? And by whom?
1. Introduction: Target Sly Cooper

**WARNING: If you haven't finished Sly 2 and don't want any spoilers, dont' read this story! OO**

A/N: For my convenience I had Murray stick with the gang after Sly reunited with him and Bentley. I know what he does in the beginning of Sly 3, but it was too difficult for me to worry about how to get him back into the gang. This whole story is still a W.I.P. and I'm trying my best to create more villains... so if you're going to be mad at me for having Murray back in the gang, just don't read this. : 'Kay?

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Sly Cooper... sadly. D':

**_Introduction: Target Sly Cooper_**

Bentley sat in the stands at the dogfight stadium with his laptop and some notes scrawled across his lap. With a few flicks of his keyboard he pulled up a live video feed from inside the Team Cooper hanger on his screen. He cleared his throat before speaking through a small headset with a microphone.

"Sly? Murray? Do you copy?"

The turtles voice crackled through the hanger's speakers. Sly departed from his plane and walked over to the intercom control panel, pressin down a small red button and answering his turtle friend.

"Yeah, I hear ya. Murray's a bit tied up at the moment, though."

Sly glanced to Murray for a moment. The pink hippo was pathetically caught in a bunch of wires coming from the hanger's security system ports. He gave a wave to Murray who, when he waved in return, fell flat on his face.

"Sly, I need you to check and make sure my robotic piloting system is working in my plane. When I give you the signal, tell me if all four lights come on in the cockpit!"

The raccoon did as he was told and went over to Bentley's plane once he was given the signal. One light flickered on, then two, then three, and finally the fourth.

"Yeah, they're on. But… are they supposed to be delayed like that?" asked Sly from across the hanger.

Just after he heard Sly give the A-OK, Bentley's connection broke and turned into static. The color commentary audio system kicked in and the stadium echoed with the voice of the announcer.

A tuxedo-wearing rabbit jumped on top of the announcers' table in their box above the stadium and poured his excited voice into the microphone he was gripping a bit too tightly.

"Welcome one and all to the twenty-fifth annual Aviator's P.R.I.M.E. competition! Pilots from far and wide come together here in this stadium in a network of heart-pounding battles to gun each other down and prove to the world who's the better aviator!"

As the commentator rambled on to get the crowd going, Bentley tried to tick around with his computer.

"It's no use," mumbled Bentley. "The commentary system is interrupting the radio waves linking me up to the hanger. I can't make out what Sly said entirely. Well at least he said they were working so it can't be anything to bad, right?"

Sly saw the yellow light in the hanger glow bright, meaning it was time for the pilots to rev their engines and get their planes out to their respective launch pads.

He climbed into his biplane and turned the controls on.

"C'mon, Murray!" he called to his teammate.

Murray finally got himself out of the mess of wires and got into his airplane as well. Bentley maneuvered his plane with a radio control system as a Robo-Bentley 5000 (basically a robot-like Bentley that the real Bentley commands from the stands) did the steering from inside the cockpit.

The three planes left the Team Cooper hanger once the doors opened up. Carefully the three drove the planes to their team's launch pad. There they saw another light system like the one in their hanger. The light was still yellow. The competition wouldn't begin until it shone green.

_//MEANWHILE…//_

Inside the massive French hotel the pilots were staying in, one of the pilots was wigging out. She ran across the lobby in a panicked dash and pushed the double-door entrance open.

"I have to make a break for it," she told herself nearly breathless as she continued to run down the street.

She was stopped, however, when she collided with a man who looked at least two decades her senior. He was partly in shadows from a five story building next to him, but the pilot on the run knew who he was.

"Where do you think you're going, Amelia?" he asked her in an accent native to his homeland. "I specifically told you what I wanted you to do. The arena you seek is _that_ way."

Amelia let her eyes trace the path that the man was pointing in. Not to her surprise, she saw the dogfighting stadium. Usually the sight of such a place made her happy. She lived for these kinds of competitions. However, being asked to kill a fellow pilot was a first.

"I… I'm sorry. I'll go get to Team France's hanger and I will not fail you." The female pilot couldn't help but lower her cat ears in sorrow. "I'll get my biplane ready this instant."

Turning around, she dragged her feet as she headed off in the direction of the French hanger. Before she was too far, the mysterious man called out to her as she continued walking.

"I do not care what you do with the other members of Team Cooper, Amelia. They are no threat to me. It is only Sly that I demand you take down."

Amelia bit her lip and quickened her pace. Eventually she broke into another sprint and reached Team France's hanger. Quickly putting her gear on, the cat stepped into her biplane and revved the engine.

"Where were you?" asked a frog pilot in French, his accent being very thick. "You had the whole team worried you weren't showing up."

"I'm not even one of your top pilots," she answered back in rougher French than the frog's as it was not her first language.

"You're only nineteen," replied the frog as he climbed into his biplane. "No youth has ever been one of France's top pilots. The majority of them are over thirty. You still have a long way to go in your training."

Amelia slumped down in her seat.

"However," the frog added as he got into his plane and readied it, "you are much more advanced than most your age. Maybe you can make the Elite Pilots by your mid-twenties. Regardless, we still value all our pilots on this team. Because you're not in the top rank does not make you useless to this team."

"Yeah, I guess," she mumbled. As the doors rose to the hanger a single-file line of French planes left it.

Before it was her turn to drive out, she pulled a photograph of Sly Cooper out from inside her brown jacket. She stared at it for a moment and slid it back into her jacket's inside pocket.

"God forgive me, I'm only following orders," she whispered to herself in English. She drove her plane out of the hanger and up to the launch pad.

The Team Cooper launch pad was only two teams down from France's. Sly and Amelia were both studying the yellow light that shone before them both on their hangers. In their minds they were counting down the seconds.

Sly was waiting for a chance to just let loose and have fun on his short vacation after a massive string of European heists. Amelia was waiting to gun down and kill a man.

3… 2… 1…

The green light lit up. All the teams' planes who were fighting that round took off into the sky and into the dogfight arena. As planes from Team Belgium, France, Canada and Cooper whizzed around in the field shots began to fire.

"THIS IS AWESOME!" cried Murray as he nailed a Belgian plane dead-on and watched it careen into the ground.

The pilot escaped unharmed and ran out of the stadium quickly into his team's rest area.

Amelia watched that pilot for a moment.

She then spotted Sly's biplane and set her turret to lock on his craft.

"Cooper, you won't be so fortunate."

---------------------------------

**Well? I know the intro here was kinda lame but trust me, it's going somewhere. It will get better! I just really, really don't want to rush into this story and make it sloppy. I haven't written anything in a WHILE, so this is a big step for me. I hope I don't seem to bad. And I'm depending on you to tell me if I am or not!**

R&R, please? Suggestions are also totally welcome. I don't bite.

THANKS FOR READING!


	2. Chapter 1: Failure With Benefits

**A/N: I apologize for any typos I had in the first portion of this story, including the introductory jabber. I tried to go back and fix them, but was giving me problems… and I don't exactly have the best computer in the world. It's a piece of junk, honestly. But anyway, let's not waste any more time. On with the ficness that is Sly 2.5! (I've been dying to do something between Sly 2 and 3 for so long now! A bit risky for a first time story after several years of not writing, though…)**

DISCLAIMER: I _**still**_** don't own Sly Cooper, dang it!**

_**Chapter One: Failure With Benefits**_

Bentley was on edge, operating his Robo-Bentley 5000 from the stands. Though there was a wall of thick plastic surrounding the stands for the viewers' protection, similar to that in hockey, he felt as if he were in that cockpit piloting the biplane in person.

Using a different frequency so he would not clash with the commentary system like before, he got himself onto Sly's radio waves.

"S-Sly!" he exclaimed with a trembling voice. "This is amazing!"

"I know," Sly replied coolly as he spun the plane a bit and shot one of the Canadian pilots down. "What a rush, eh?" He chuckled slightly at his cultural joke.

"Very much so. Now I'll leave you be, but keep your eyes peeled. There's thirty-something planes here that are not on your side, so stay sharp!"

The radio silenced and Sly put all his focus back into the flight. He was glad Bentley had talked him and Murray into coming to the Aviator's P.R.I.M.E. instead of just watching it on television at home.

Bentley had wanted to observe the competition in person to take some technical notes. He wanted to better his understanding of aerodynamics, RC technology, aviation and flight overall. Figuring that Sly and Murray would _want _action rather than _watch_ the action, he pulled a few strings and got them into the competition as Team Cooper. Even entering himself through an RC controlled biplane, Bentley was able to join in the fun.

"Hey Murray," called Sly through his radio link up with Murray's plane. "Bentley's getting a real rush out of this. How're you holding up?"

"Finer than the line between pain and justice! 'The Murray' has never enjoyed himself in a vehicle as much as he is now," replied the pink hippo.

Sly blinked and raised his eyebrows in a quick motion. "O… kay then. Have fun and I'll see you in the winner's circle, buddy."

"Roger that!"

No sooner did his transmission to Murray end, he felt his entire plane shake. He had been hit in the tail by one of the French pilots.

"So I guess I'm taking you down next?" mused Sly. He aimed for the French plane and was just about to fire his turret when it pulled a surprising maneuver.

Turning perpendicular to the ground, the biplane from Team France did a nose dive towards the grassy ground below. At the last possible second it pulled up and was ascending rapidly right under Sly's plane.

Amelia felt her heart still jumping from pulling such a trick. She had always messed up when she tried to pull that same move during practice in the field. She sighed in relief from not being transformed into spin art on the stadium floor and locked her turret on Sly once more.

"This is so wrong… but if you don't die Sly, I do."

Her fire made direct impact with Sly's plane. It began spinning towards the ground, picking up speed as it fell.

When the Team Cooper craft crashed at last and spawned a few flickering flames. She knew Sly would still be alive in that wreckage, so she decided to violate one of the major rules in the competition. _Never shoot a pilot or his aircraft once he is down._

On the brink of tears and eyes shut tight, she unloaded a good load of her turret onto Sly's plane. Unaware of the fact that he had already made way towards the rest area, by the time she opened her watery eyes she figured him dead.

Overwhelmed by her own actions, she began to fire rapidly at any and every plane she saw out of anger. Within a few minutes she had taken out four from Canada's fleet, five from Belgium and even one of her own.

The French frog from before got on her radio frequency, angry and ready to scold her.

"Darn you, Amelia Marie Restouvette! What was that all about?!" he shouted at her.

"I'm sorry, I'm just so rattled right now it's insane!" she replied in a shaky voice, forgetting to speak French.

"What did you say? I cannot understand your English, Amelia."

She answered him in French this time. "I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry, okay?"

"I have heard better French from Scotsmen," scoffed the frog in anger. "You have years of experience more than you should, and with that one move you have just blown all of the extra credit that gave you."

Amelia tried to hold back more tears. "I apologize again, sir."

"Well you _should_-" The transmission was cut off.

Amelia glanced around for his plane, and once she found it she understood why. It was en route for the ground. By the looks of the cheering pilot in a Team Cooper plane, they were the ones to have struck it.

"Bentley, Sly, did you see that?" Murray shouted with joy. "That French sucka was asking for it!"

"Murray, Sly's been hit," answered Bentley. "You can't reach him on the biplane's radio. I'll try to patch you through to our resting area if you want."

"Oh darn," Murray sighed. "I'll just talk to him after the dogfight. Thanks though."

At that moment, a French plane buzzed by Murray and nearly spun him around. It seemed to be en route towards another plane from its own fleet.

Amelia saw one of her "allied" planes heading straight for her and gasped as it fired at her, purposely missing by a hair. She knew her team was very mad at her for shooting down one of her own. Even she felt the need to scold herself for it.

The punishment continued as yet another one of her own team's planes grazed hers and threw her biplane into a downward spiral. She gained control of the craft just before it slammed the ground and whizzed by the Team Cooper rest area as she tried to pull back up.

Sly was sitting down on a bench, sipping a coffee and watching the fight comfortably. He had a slight pain in his right shoulder but it was nothing near serious.

Amelia nearly froze at her controls. "He's still alive?" she exclaimed aloud in disbelief. "H-He's still alive!" A smile crossed her face but soon vanished. "Oh no… _he's still alive_. Now I'm the one who'll be dead."

And if the mysterious man from before was not going to be the one to kill her, then it would most likely be one of the other pilots in the dogfight. Besides her, only one other French plane remained.

Teams Canada and Belgium had grown a bit of a hate for the French team after Amelia's firing spree and were clearly aiming the majority of their attacks on her team.

Team Cooper seemed to enjoy not taking sides or holding grudges with anyone, being the only team to enjoy a free-for-all fight. Soon their free ride of not drawing much attention from other teams would end, though. Only Murray and Bentley remained, and Bentley was beginning to have problems.

One of the four lights on the Robo-Bentley 5000 system went out and the plane began to smoke.

"What's happening?" cried Bentley as the plane smoked more once a second light went out. "It's malfunctioning! At this rate it'll be a hazardous chunk of matter spinning in the airspace and breakneck speed in only a few seconds!"

The final two lights went out at the same time. The Robo-Bentley 5000 began to smoke and flame as the plane caught fire. It spun towards the ground and crashed into a plane of Team Canada's, as well as Murray's.

All three crafts were on fire and hit the ground with a boom.

"And Team Cooper is completely wiped out!" shouted the eccentric announcer from before.

His fellow announcer, a female chicken donning a lovely gown, spoke with a more calm tone. "A plane from Team Canada was also wiped out in that accident, folks. This leaves the count at the following… Team France, 2; Team Canada, 4; Team Belgium 3; and Team Cooper, 0! We're getting closer to the end of this round, everyone! Stick around for the fight between Teams America, England, Australia and Germany after this!"

"We're in third, Amelia," grumbled the French voice of a female mouse onto the white cat's airwaves. "Follow me and do as I do."

Amelia did as she was told and followed her teammate's pattern of movement, zigzagging in a crazy fashion and causing two Canadian planes to collide with one another. A few moments later their split-and-shoot formation took out what remained of Team Belgium.

"It's down to two planes from Team Canada and two from France, everybody!" shouted the male announcer in his crazy as ever voice. "This is tense! This is-"

Amelia was stunned by the sight of her teammate's plane colliding with one of the Canadian crafts. She figured there must have been a system malfunction.

"This is Sudden Death!" cried the two announcers at the same time.

Roaring cheers from the French rooted for Amelia to win, while screams of support from the Canadians demanded their pilot shoot down Amelia first.

And that's exactly what happened.

The Canadian had shot his turret at Amelia before she could even think of a formation to surprise him with, and her plane slammed the ground.

Climbing out of the wreckage and getting a scratch on her thigh, she growled to herself and ran into her rest area. There she met the faces of several disappointed teammates.

As she slunked down against the wall in shame, Sly was rising up out of his seat in joy. Despite his early demise he was still as happy as ever.

"That was invigorating!" Bentley cheered as he entered the rest area to meet up with Murray and Sly. "Not only did I learn more about aerodynamics and flight but I even get to better my RC technology by observing Robo-Bentley 5000's origin of malfunction!"

"Guess the bust was a good thing," joked Sly as he finished off his cup of coffee from before. "You get everything you need, Bentley? Y'know, all those notes you wanted to take and stuff?"

"In a simple sentence, no…" The turtle wheeled his way out of the rest area with Sly and Murray at his sides. "You see, there never is any end to learning. No one knows everything. I want to run some flight simulations on my laptop and observe the Robo-Bentley 5000 on the inside."

"Remind us again why you wanted to study up on all this flight junk?" asked Murray.

Bentley scratched his chin in thought. "To keep it a short story, more and more high tech security places putting more focus on underground and perimeter security. They're also neglecting Arial Defense Systems, or ADS. If I can brush up my skills on ADS security cracking – which involves most of what I'm taking notes on – we will have a much easier time pulling off our next heist."

Sly shrugged. "There hasn't been a _great_ thieving opportunity in a while. Sure, we've had some good lifts but… nothing that'll really add points to the Cooper Gang reputation."

"My knowledge of bypassing an ADS was inadequate for any 'great' heists, Sly. After I look over what I've learned here for a week or so we can move on to something much bigger."

The threesome left the stadium at last and paused for a moment outside. Bentley was the one to break the silence.

"I'm going to go observe the robot and take notes on this last dogfight. You two can join me in the stands if you like or-"

He was interrupted by a female voice calling out for the three of them.

"Team Cooper!" Amelia shouted as she came running up to them. "Team Cooper, I am pilot Amelia Restouvette from Team France and the one who took out one of your pilots…"

"That would be me," answered Sly with an undistinguished tone of voice. "Great skills for someone so young. Aren't the majority of those pilots of a bunch of old bats?"

Amelia snickered. "The lot of them _are_ middle-aged, but it's aside from my point. I came here to, well, apologize."

The mysterious man from before began to speak through a small, camouflaged earpiece in the white cat's ear. He was not too happy.

"Sly Cooper is still alive and now you're apologizing for his death? You have failed me, Amelia. You have failed me miserably."

Amelia winced and nervously played with her fingers behind her back.

"Apologize for what?" asked Sly, a bit astonished.

"S… shooting you down like I did."

"Isn't that the point of the competition…?"

The man spoke into Amelia's earpiece once more. "'Isn't that the point of the competition?' I'll tell you what the point of the competition was! To destroy you, Cooper!"

Amelia smacked her right hand to her ear holding the transmission device, giving it a jiggle. She wanted the man's commentary to stop."

"Yes, the goal is to shoot the other pilots down," she started, "but not to continue firing at them once their plane is out of commission. That kind of action can severely injure and even kill pilots in your position, sir."

Sly just listened.

"My turret got stuck," she lied. "I've been having problems with it all week at practice. I thought I found the problem this morning and gave it a last minute fix but I suppose I was wrong."

Sly just smiled in a friendly manner. "It's alright. By the time you mutilated my plane I was already making a break for the rest area."

As Amelia and Sly slowly drifted into conversation, Bentley began to type away at his laptop. Murray peered over his turtle friend's shoulder and tried to understand what Bentley was up to.

"Something doesn't seem right, here," muttered Bentley quietly as he plowed through records of some sort.

Murray figured he was trying to figure out what went wrong with the Robo-Bentley 5000 and let his friend be.

"I'll go grab us some snacks for the next round!" announced the pink hippo.

"Alright, Murray. Sounds like a plan," replied Sly with a wink. He then turned to the white cat beside him. "Care to join us in watching people shoot other people out of the sky?"

The white cat was nearly overwhelmed with panic from Sly's question. She had no clue how to answer him. Would her employer, the mysterious man who wanted her to kill Sly, want her to join the Cooper Gang in festivities or weasel her way out of the opportunity?

Almost as if he were a mind reader, her employer answered her thoughts. "Accept the invitation, my dear. Take him out when he's not looking!"

"H-How?!" Amelia asked out in shock.

"Excuse me?" Sly raised an eyebrow.

"You're a crafty child. You'll find a way," the man's chilling voice coaxed.

Amelia shook her head, taking off her pilot's hat and goggles set to run a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair.

"S-Sure, I'd love to join you guys for the next round. Just let me head back to my hanger to change out of my gear and hang up my plane." Amelia put on a big, fake smile. "Be _right_ back."

Turning around, she dashed off in the direction of Team France's hanger. Her heard pounded the entire way there.

"Can you find somebody else to do your dirty work?" Amelia hissed with a shiver up her spine as she entered the hanger and began to hag up her biplane.

"Try to remember back a few months ago." Her employer began to take her on a walk down Not-So-Distant Memory Lane as she finished hanging up her plane and left to her private room to change into casual clothes.

"It was at your nineteenth birthday party, I believe. You left your friends for a moment and pulled me aside. You asked me, 'What is my purpose, my destiny, my future?' All your friends were starting to delve into their parents' businesses or focusing more on their college majors. You asked me, 'Where is my life headed? Everyone else seems to know where theirs are going. What about me?'"

Amelia finished dressing into a pair of blue jeans and lavender, frilly edged tee. As she threw her hair into an up-pony tail she recalled the words her employer was reminding her of. She paused and took a look at herself in the mirror.

"I can answer all those questions for you now, child. Listen up."

_//MEANWHILE…//_

The Cooper Gang was in the stands, amongst the roaring patriots cheering for their respective countries. Bentley was now fully attentive towards his computer and unresponsive to anything going on around him. Murray had returned with the food and doled out the snacks, hanging on to Amelia's until she would arrive. Sly was trying to predict what order the teams would finish in.

"Wonder what's taking that Amelia girl so long," thought Murray aloud.

"She's probably just going over some technical stuff with her team or something," answered Sly. "She _did_ say her plane had a problem."

"Ah well whatever the case is, her fries are looking mighty good right now. Wouldn't want them to get cold, y'know." Murray eyed the fries and soda for Amelia.

"Easy, big fella. Just give her a moment." Sly chuckled and leaned back.

"BINGO!!!" cried Bentley. "I've found the perfect job for us, guys."

Sly and Murray jumped up and crowded around Bentley's computer. They looked to the screen expectantly and found a news article about an Egyptian treasure up on the screen. The turtle provided an explanation.

"It says here that Doctor Richard Tsekani, native to Cairo, has discovered the most valuable load of Egyptian treasure to date. He is temporarily holding the majority of the loot in his Treasure Room at the Grande Palace; an estate with amazing underground and perimeter security. However, the ADS is its weak spot!"

"Though," Bentley continued, "the ADS is not _weak_. It's just security's weakest point. To bypass it I'll need to recruit the help of an Arial Operations Specialist."

Murray blinked. "You got anyone in mind?"

Just then, Amelia walked in and stood by the Cooper Gang.

"Sorry I was so slow," she apologized. "I had to tick around with my plane at the last minute and I totally fixed the turret problem. A lot of the fleet needed some assistance with the semi-wrecked biplanes too so I offered my help. With the exception of the pulverized crafts, our team is as good as new."

Sly and Murray looked to Amelia, and then to Bentley. They knew what he was about to say.

"Yes, Murray. I know a prime candidate for the job."

---------------------------------

**I know, I know. It's taking forever to get to the actiony part where to meet all the villains and go around the world with different goals… **

**Don't worry; I'm planning on bringing in the first villain in the next installment! I've already got him mapped out.**

**R&R, please! Suggestions welcome!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


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